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The Electric VTOL RevolutionWill you be ready?
www.eVTOL.news/news
Mike Hirschberg, Executive Director
The Vertical Flight Society
www.vtol.org • [email protected]
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© Vertical Flight Society: CC-BY-SA 4.0
▪ The international professional society for those working to advance vertical flight – Founded in 1943 as the American Helicopter Society (AHS)
– Everything from VTOL MAVs/UAS to helicopters, eVTOL, etc.
▪ Expands knowledge about vertical flight technology and promotes its application around the world
▪ Advances safety and acceptability
▪ Advocates for vertical flight R&D funding
▪ Helps educate and support today’s and tomorrow’s vertical flight engineers and leaders
▪ Brings together the community — industry, academia and government agencies — to tackle the toughest challenges
VFF Scholarship Winners at Forum 71, May 2015
CFD of Joby S4, Aug 2015
Join us today: www.vtol.org
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1st AHS Banquet
1944
1st eVTOL Workshop
2014
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▪ VFS has a long history of advocacy and leadership
– Helped establish NASA-Army Joint Office, Nat’l Rotorcraft Technology Center (NRTC), Centers of Excellence, RITA/VLC
– Worked with NASA and DoD to save the NFAC wind tunnel
▪ Provided major support to transformative initiatives
– Joint Strike Fighter/F-35B STOVL Lightning II
– V-22 Osprey tiltrotor
▪ Providing major foundational support to new transformative initiatives
– Future Vertical Lift (FVL)/Joint Multi-Role (JMR)
– Electric and hybrid-electric VTOL (eVTOL)
VFS Works to Advance Vertical Flight!
NFAC 40 ft x 80 ft wind tunnel
Courtesy of NASA
Future Vertical Lift (FVL)
Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant and Bell Valor
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▪ Electric & hybrid electric propulsion enable new possibilities for:– Regional/Rural Air Mobility (RAM)– Urban Air Mobility (UAM)/Air Taxis– Urban Cargo Delivery/Disaster Relief– Personal Air Vehicles– Ultralights– Personal Flying Devices– Urban Package Delivery (sUAS)
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avie
r, H
yb
rid
www.eVTOL.news
NASA
“Advanced
Air Mobility”
(AAM)
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eVTOL Ultralights Are Flying In the US/Canada
▪ Flight experience offerings
▪ Ultralights under FAR Part
103 do not require
certification
▪ Less than 254 lb (115 kg)
plus 30 lb per float plus
parachutes, etc.
▪ Restricted in speed,
overflights, etc.
▪ Opener and Kitty Hawk
have made 20,000+ flight
each!
Like flying jet skis!
Kitty Hawk Flyer (<254 lb)
Opener BlackFly (310 lb)
Hoversurf Scorpion (<254 lb)
LIFT Aircraft Hexa (462 lb)
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▪ Bell unveils all-electric Nexus 4EX at CES
▪ Hyundai unveils S-A1 eVTOL concept at CES and pledges $1.5B for UAM
▪ Joby Aviation’s Series C investment led by Toyota with $394M. Total = $720M overall.
Joby Aviation S4 Production Prototype
Bell 5-seat Nexus 4EX
(mock-up)
Hyundai S-A1 (mock-up)
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▪ Eliminate complex rotors!
– Cyclic, collective, swashplate
– Transmissions, gearboxes, shafting, hydraulics, etc.
▪ Distributed Electric Propulsion
– Replace single complex system with multiple simple thrusters
▪ Get on a wing for efficiency
– Higher speed, longer range
▪ Environment
– Noise, noise, noise!
– “Tailpipe” emissions▪ Sikorsky “Firefly” Project (2010)
– Conversion of S-300C to electric powerwww.eVTOL.news
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Advancements in electric motors
+ Advancements in batteries
+ Advancements in computer modeling and simulation
+ Advancements in composites
+ Low cost manufacturing
+ Movement to performance regs
+ Tech innovations
+ Tech investments > $2B
= Enabling new configurations and new innovations
www.eVTOL.news
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“The Hype Cycle”
https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cyclewww.eVTOL.news
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“The Hype Cycle”
https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle
The eVTOL
Revolution
Needs YOU!
www.eVTOL.news
ATTENTION:
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▪ eVTOL must have low direct operating costs and seat mile costs to be successful
▪ Batteries will continue to improve
– Drones: 1.5M drones registered in US (Jan 2020)and 162,000+ registered drone operators.
– EVs: Tesla Model S started in 2012, now all car companies have electric cars. Much lower operating costs vs. fuel-burning cars.
– Look at your laptop or cell phone today compared to 10 & 20 years ago
▪ Cost: eVTOL aircraft will be much cheaper/easier to manufacture, for much higher production rates/reduced costs vs. helicopters (but cars?)
▪ Noise: much lower, allowing more operations in higher density locations
Potential for step-change in utilization by improved cost, noise & speed
Overair (Karem) Butterfly
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▪ Uber Elevate & VFS– Unveiled at eVTOL Workshop in Sep 2016
– White Paper in Oct 2016
– Summits April 2017, May 2018, June 2019
▪ Developing an “Ecosystem”– Partnerships with cities, real estate
companies, aircraft manufacturers, and EV charger companies, etc.
– Connecting innovators, investors, regulators, technical experts, media
▪ Small aircraft, but high barriers– Technical, regulatory, environmental,
economic, infrastructural and culturalwww.eVTOL.news
Uber plans test flights in 2020 and
operational service in 2023!
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1. Technology: batteries, motors, etc. for larger sizes, e.g. pilot + 4 pax
2. Infrastructure: physical and ATM/UTM3. Flying: Pilot shortage vs. autonomy4. Standards & Regulations: in development5. Public acceptance: safety, noise, NIMBY
+ a rush for first mover advantage!
Gannett Fleming Skyport concept
Boeing 2-seat Passenger Air Vehicle
(unmanned)
www.eVTOL.news
Airbus 1-seat Vahana
(unmanned)
Airbus 4-seat CityAirbus
(unmanned)
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The Electric VTOL Newswww.eVTOL.news
▪ World eVTOL Aircraft Directory– Everything from the silly to the serious
▪ 269 aircraft (as of 14 April 2020)– 101 Vectored Thrust
– 40 Lift + Cruise
– 58 Wingless (multicopters)
– 50 Hover Bikes/Flying Devices
– 20 eHelos & eGyros
▪ ~200 eVTOL companies/designers
▪ ~250 VFS articles on eVTOL
▪ Timeline, maps, company directory, educational videos, etc. L
iliu
m J
et (M
un
ich
, G
erm
an
y)
Wis
k C
ora
(U
SA
& N
Z)
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▪ Electric VTOL News
– www.eVTOL.news
– www.facebook.com/electricVTOL
– www.twitter.com/electricVTOL
– www.youtube.com/VTOLsociety
– www.instagram.com/VTOLsociety
– www.vimeo.com/VTOLsociety
▪ Also
– Electric VTOL eNewsletter
– eVTOL News videos
– eVTOL video presentations (100+ hours)
– eVTOL short course videos (25+ hours)
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▪ Workshop on Electric VTOL Infrastructure @ Virtual, Wednesdays April 15-May 6, 2020– Supporting FAA Tech Center, Atlantic City
– City planners, architectural firms, utilities, etc.
– www.vtol.org/infrastructure
▪ 76th Annual Forum @ VA Beach, Oct 6-8, 2020– 1,200+ rotorcraft & eVTOL engineers, scientists and
leaders from industry, academia and governments
– ~250 technical papers, ~75 panelists, ~60 exhibitors
– www.vtol.org/forum
▪ Autonomous VTOL Meeting @ Mesa, AZ, Jan. 26–28, 2021– 8th Annual Electric VTOL Symposium
– ~500 attendees, exhibitors, sponsors
– Save the Date!
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Where We Are Now
First hover First public demos Capable product Advanced product
1907 Cornu (Lisieux, France) 1938 Fw 61
Deutschlandhalle (Bremen)
1967 Bo 105 first flight (Ottobrun) 2015 H160 (Marignane)
2011 e-Volo VC1
(Karlsruhe, Germany)
2019 Volocopter 2X
Mercedes-Benz Museum (Stuttgart)
2019 Concept
Volocopter VoloCity TBD
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▪ Need 10,000 eVTOLs/year. Aerospace supply chain not prepared for this!
– Even with those quantities, the automotive supply chain will not be interested
– Commercial vehicle (i.e. trucks) and military ground vehicle suppliers are more closely aligned in terms of volume and possibly reliability/environment
▪ Required electronics content will be a challenge
– High volume (low cost) suppliers will struggle to meet aero requirements (energy density, power density, etc.)
– Commonality and flexibility across platforms can provide some relief
▪ Electric motors, controllers & batteries all require “rare-earth” raw materials (Lithium, Cobalt, Neodynium, Samarium, etc.)
– Limited sources … from sometimes “undesirable” nations
– Other industries are also increasing the use of these materials (automotive, industrial, power grid, etc.)
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▪ Novel materials / processes will be used in the development of the infrastructure– Current heliports typically do not see the volume of traffic anticipated by UAM
– Lighting, surface treatment, etc. will require advancement to deal with this volume of traffic.
– Substation required for charging demands (“grocery store” equivalent power for each aircraft)
▪ Efficiency will be key in maintaining the fleet load factor and utilization– Delivery of electrical power to the aircraft
(infrastructure design & Mfg.)
– Charging of the aircraft (vertiport design/mfg.)
– Passenger em-/deplaning (aircraft design/mfg.)
– Optimization vs. commonality
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▪ Use of performance-based standards to show means of compliance will be effective in reducing the complexity of design/mfg.– Industry is still not sure how to achieve this
▪ Getting AS9100 certified will be required– There are no shortcuts or comparable documentation sets in ground vehicle
▪ Testing methodology is very different from ground vehicle
▪ Crashworthiness: – Airplanes crash horizontally; rotorcraft crash vertically
– What about unitized composite structures with lots of battery mass & distributed electric motor masses
– New effort needed to understand eVTOL crash safety
– NASA eVTOL Crashworthiness webinar: April 7nari.arc.nasa.gov/crashworthiness
Vehicle Tech – Energy Absorbing (EA) Additions
• Using 30 ft/s from NASA Case Study for impact velocity
• NASA RVLT Lift+Cruise baseline vs added occupant protection
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Carbon fiber structure
• Non energy absorbing seat
• No other EA structure added
Injury loads approximately
1.5 x injury limits
Carbon Airframe
• Carbon/Kevlar hybrid structure
• Add stroking seat with seat foam
• Add energy attenuating subfloor
Injury loads 20% below injury limits
Putnam, J.B. and Littell, J.D. “Crashworthiness of a Lift plus Cruise eVTOL Vehicle Design within Dynamic Loading Environments.”
To be presented at the Vertical Flight Society International Annual Forum 76, Virginia Beach, Virginia USA, Oct. 6-8, 2020.
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▪ 400 engineers to design/build prototypes
▪ Need efficient manufacturing to build 10,000 aircraft/year
▪ Somewhere between aviation and automotive scales
▪ From 74,000 ft² to 2 million ft² (7,000-200,000 m²)
▪ All-composite/unitized structures?
▪ Supported with Toyota
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▪ Helicopter industry has a shortage of pilots, mechanics, etc. – 2018 HAI/North Dakota study indicated a shortfall of 7,649 helicopter pilots and 40,613 mechanics
in the U.S. between 2018 and 2036.
▪ Rotorcraft industry needs more engineers– Huge new military and civil rotorcraft development programs — need thousands of more
rotorcraft engineers in the coming decade-plus
– Competition is fierce for rotorcraft grads and experienced professionals
▪ eVTOL needs more pilots, engineers, mechanics, etc. – US Army-Navy-NASA-funded Vertical Lift Research Centers of Excellence (VLRCOE) only producing
dozens of grad students. Need more government & industry funding for university research/grads
– Need 500-1,000 engineers to develop each eVTOL to certification, then upgrades
– First generations of eVTOLs will be piloted. Need 50,000 pilots … at least temporarily.
– Instead of A&P mechanics, do we need A&E’s?
▪ Need a National eVTOL Strategy for workforce, infrastructure, manufacturing, etc.
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▪ The Electric VTOL Revolution is on track for 2023
▪ “There are 1,000 reasons why eVTOL won’t work — we have to find solutions to all of them to find the path that does work”
▪ eVTOL is the intersection of aerospace, automotive, electric, AI, drones, etc.
▪ To invent to a new industry, it will take everyone’s efforts
▪ VFS is leading eVTOL efforts
▪ It takes a village
▪ It takes a town
▪ It takes a city
▪ It takes a county
▪ It takes a state
▪ It takes a nation
▪ It takes a society
▪ It takes the world
▪ It takes you
Join us!
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▪ VFS is the global Vertical Flight Society
– We are helping to shape the future of vertical flight!
– We need you to be successful!
– Find out more or join at www.vtol.org
▪ Significant funds being invested in electric VTOL (>$2.5B)
– Infrastructure Webinars: Wednesdays in April-May
– 250+ concepts — significant work in hybrid/electric VTOL aircraft
– Explosive interest in drones is being repeated with manned eVTOL
– The Electric VTOL Revolution is transformative like the turbine engine
– Find out more at www.eVTOL.news
Summarywww.eVTOL.news/news
